My Cat and I by Shelly Blankman

Woman Reading, by Will Barnet, 1970.

My Cat and I

I remember the times
I’d settle in bed, a book
in my hands, blanketed

by the sweet silence of
night that would whisk
me away from the  

stresses of day and my
eyelids would droop like
drapes as I gently slipped

into sleep, but that was before
our plush lump of a beast, our
cat, white as an unblemished field

of snow, with the low steady rumble
of distant thunder, the om of a
muddied day...my book, his pillow,

each new page, his dominion marked
with the whoosh of his full furry tail.
His nightly soundtrack of purrs drowning

my own efforts to read, my fingers
pushing his paws gently to reveal
words, his paws dancing with my fingers
in this shadowed tango of wills.

Two missions at bay, mine to read, his
to rest or play, that merged over time, but
only because I grew weary of trying to win.

Our cat’s gone now.
No flying fur, no purring
to distract me, no paws
to cause me to lose my place.

Just my book and I.
Just my book and I.

Shelly Blankman

Shelly Blankman and her husband Jon are empty-nesters who live in Columbia, Maryland with their 4 cat rescues. They have two sons: Richard, 32, of New York, and Joshua, 30, of San Antonio. Shelly's first love has always been poetry, although her career has generally followed the path of public relations/journalism. Her poetry has been published by Ekphrastic: writing and art on art and writing, Silver Birch Press, Verse-Virtual, and Visual Verse.